I suppose I should have wondered about the unfamiliar silence that lay over the city of Yogjakarta in central Java when I was woken at 4am by the call of the muezzin to dawn prayers at the mosque.

An explosive volcanic eruption on Indonesia’s most populous island has blasted ash and debris 18kms into the air, killing two people while forcing authorities to evacuate more than 100,000 and close six airports.

More than 25,000 villagers were refusing to leave their homes on the slopes of a killer Indonesian volcano today, despite warnings that the peak was poised for a powerful eruption.

Thousands of villagers defied warnings of a major eruption at one of Indonesia’s deadliest volcanos, leaving refugee centres today and returning to its slopes to tend to crops and animals.